


So Much About Myself I Never Knew

by CPFics



Series: The Hogwarts Queer Society [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: magicqueers, magicqueers, queer headcanons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 09:30:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CPFics/pseuds/CPFics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex Green doesn't know a lot about gender. Raised female, Alex feels neither 'boy' nor 'girl' ever really fitted. But after Professor McGonagall turns up on the Green family doorstep and a girl called Cora, whom Alex meets in Diagon Alley, brings up the concept of non-binary genders, Alex begins to learn that the magical world isn't the only world full of things waiting to be discovered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Much About Myself I Never Knew

It was the height of summer and we were eating breakfast. There was a knock at the door.

“I’ll get it,” I said, licking toast crumbs off my fingers and standing up. I opened the door to a tall, thin woman, with her hair tied back in a severe bun at the back of her head. Despite her other features, there was a kind look to her face. She was wearing an ankle-length tartan skirt and a white button-up shirt with frills on the wrists and collar.

“Alex Green?” she asked. She had a Scottish accent. I nodded. “My name is Minerva McGonagall, I’m here to talk to you about starting your new school in September.” “You’re from St Martin’s Grammar?” I said, not recognising her from any of my visits to the school a few months before. I stepped back to let her in.

“Not exactly,” she replied as she walked past me. I hurried after her into the kitchen. My parents stood up as she entered.

“Mr. and Mrs. Green, good morning. Please, do not interrupt your breakfast on my account.” she gestured for them to sit down again, and took a seat between them, opposite my own. “I understand you were intending to send Alex to St Martin’s Grammar School in September, but I am here to propose an alternative.” 

Dad made to stand up, saying, “If you’re selling, we’re not interested,” but he was interrupted.

“Please, Mr. Green, hear me out. My name is Minerva McGonagall, and I am here on behalf of Hogwarts School of Magic.” As she spoke, she pulled an envelope from her skirt pocket. “I understand that this may seem implausible, but I am here to answer any questions you may have.”

She passed the envelope across the table to me. It was sealed with wax, which was stamped with an ‘H’. I opened it with one finger, and unfolded the piece of paper inside. Not that it was like normal paper – it was thicker and rougher. More like parchment.

I read the letter inside, and looked up.

“I don’t understand,” I said, “I’ve never shown any interest in learning magic.”

McGonagall smiled. “Hogwarts is not a school where you learn to be a stage magician, Mx Green, it is something you have been born into.  You were born with magical ability in your blood. Granted, it does not manifest very often in your family, but your great-grandmother’s cousin was once a student at Hogwarts. In fact, you are distantly related to a former Hogwarts headmaster.”

“Hang on a moment,” Mum interrupted, “We know nothing about this place. How do we know you’re genuine?”

“Oh,” said McGonagall, fishing in her skirt pocket, “Here.” She reached across the table and placed a dark purple leaflet in Mrs. Green’s hand. On the front was a photograph of a castle set in sprawling grounds, bordered on one side by a dark forest. At the top was a crest, split into quarters, and just below was printed:

 **HOGWARTS**  
School of Magic  
(formerly of Witchcraft and Wizardry)

Inside, the leaflet talked about classes such as Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration and Astronomy, the Quidditch Club, the Duelling Club, the Charms Club and the Potions Club, and the four houses: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin. The pictures showed students frowning over cauldrons of colourful concoctions, huge corridors with stone floors and walls and cosy common rooms lit and warmed by huge fireplaces.

“Go on, then,” said Dad, turning his eyes back to McGonagall, “How much is this all going to cost us?”

“Hogwarts is free to anyone with magical ability who wishes to attend. There is a list of required equipment, books and uniform, but your family has had a vault at Gringotts Wizarding Bank for hundreds of years, and I think you’ll find that your great-grandmother’s cousin did not leave it in too poor a state.”

McGonagall pulled another envelope out of her pocket and handed it to me. I opened it and tipped the contents into my hands: a heavy brass key, and a note: ‘Minerva, I am leaving the key to the family vault in your care, to pass on to my soonest magical descendant. I know I can trust you. Yours eternally, Dahlia Undercliffe’.

Dad eyed the letter sceptically.

“I want more proof than leaflets and letters,” he said, “You could be trying to take our daughter off anywhere.”

I flinched inwardly at his use of the word ‘daughter’, and noticed McGonagall’s eyes flicker towards me.

“Enclosed with the letter is a list of equipment Alex will need for the new school year. These items are only available for purchase in London. I have already booked train tickets for the four of us, and I can order a taxi to take us to the station.”

Dad scowled.

“If you insist, but I’d rather do the driving myself.”

~~~

It was nearly midday by the time we reached London, and it was growing to be one of the warmest days of the year. From the train station, we walked behind McGonagall through the maze of streets, teeming with tourists, until we came to the entrance of a dingy, worn down pub. The sign outside read ‘The Leaky Cauldron’.

“You’ve got to be joking,” Dad muttered as McGonagall led us out of the sunshine and into the gloom beyond.

The Leaky Cauldron had a cosy, homely feel to it, despite its gloominess. Today it was full of people reading a newspaper headed ‘The Daily Prophet’, chatting animatedly among themselves and drinking drinks I wasn’t sure I recognised. All of them were wearing long dark cloaks that I thought must have been much too warm for the weather.

McGonagall waved to the barman as we passed through, and he nodded back with a smile. She led us out through the back of The Leaky Cauldron into a small back yard, enclosed by a high brick wall. She pulled a wand out of her shirtsleeve and used it to tap several bricks on the wall. Dad sighed.

Suddenly the bricks in the wall began to fold back upon one another, and a wide archway opened up in the middle of what had previously appeared to be a solid brick wall. McGonagall stepped aside to let us pass through. A long cobbled street stretched away in either direction, lined with higgledy-piggledy shops and full of more people in long robes, some wearing pointy hats.

Any hint of cynicism had vanished from Dad’s face as he stepped forward, open-mouthed, and stared around him. Mum was equally amazed, but her lips were turned upwards in wonder as her wide eyes took in everything. For my part, I felt like running into the street, dancing and leaping with joy and excitement: magic was real. Magic was an innate talent, and I had it. And I was going to go to a school and learn it.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked up to see McGonagall smiling down at me.

“Welcome to Diagon Alley,” she said. “First we will need to withdraw some money from Gringotts, and then… why don’t we start with your robes?”

~~~

My stomach had twinged with nerves a little as I had looked into the window display of Madam Malkin’s and seen the mannequins clearly dressed as boys and girls. My dad would want me to have a skirt, as he had done with every previous school uniform I had needed, and which I didn’t really mind, but sometimes I just wanted to wear trousers. And that, my Dad – and often the school management – would say, was not proper.

Of course, he didn’t know about the days when I would hate my skirt so thoroughly that I would cry as I pulled it on. How throughout the day I would feel smothered and enclosed, unable to sit comfortably as a result of the need to preserve my modesty, when I really just wanted to spread out in my seat, or play football or rugby with the boys. But I couldn’t. Because I had to wear a skirt.

As soon as McGonagall opened the door it was obvious that the shop beyond was packed. Children and parents were lining the walls, tripping over each other to collect the uniform they would need. McGonagall stepped back.

“Perhaps we should wait outside,” she said, “will you be alright going in on your own?”

I nodded, trying not to let the relief show too much on my face. McGonagall’s return smile was conspiratorial.

I squeezed into the shop, clutching my supplies list, and looked around, wondering where to start. A friendly looking woman sidled over to me.

“Are you looking for your first year robes too, my dear? Here, I’ll grab you some when I get Cora’s.” I was a little surprised when she gestured to the child standing next to her when she said Cora, as I had thought they were a boy. But then, I had learned recently that such things were not always as obvious as many people seemed to think.

“Would you like skirts or trousers?” The woman called from the corner, where she was pulling a couple of blouses off the shelf. “Blouses or shirts? Or some of each?”

“Um, some of each, please,” I said as I edged closer to Cora, who, I now noticed, had a handbag slung over her shoulder and whose hair bore the unmistakeably look of once a short hairstyle being grown out. Cora smiled nervously at me.

“Hi,” I said, “I’m Alex. I … um … do you mind if ... I was wondering ….”

“I’m a girl,” Cora replied, “Don’t worry, I know I don’t look like it. I only just came out when my letter arrived. Can I ask what your pronouns are? I like it when people use ‘she’ for me.”

“Everyone uses ‘she’, but … I don’t like it. But I don’t like ‘he’ either. I don’t really know….”

“Have you heard of gender-neutral pronouns?” Cora asked. I shook my head. “There are loads of them. They’re what most enbies use.”

I looked at her blankly.

“Enbies. Non-binary people. People who feel they’re not just a boy or a girl. They might feel like neither, or both, or one one day and one the next.”

“That’s me,” I said quickly, “That last one, that’s me.”

Cora nodded.

“I take it that you haven’t said anything about this to your parents yet. That’s OK. Tell you what, here’s my address.” She pulled a scrap of aged-looking paper, a feather quill and a small inkpot out of her bag and scribbled a few lines. “Send me your owl over the holidays and I’ll send you some stuff I’ve got about gender. If you want to, of course.”

“Thanks,” I said, as I took the paper from her. I didn’t have a chance to ask what she meant by ‘send me your owl’, as just then her mother herded us further into the shop, where Madam Malkin was measuring children and fixing their clothes where necessary. Or rather, she was taking measurements – the actual measuring was being done by the tape measure itself, twisting and stretching all by itself in midair. I couldn’t help but let out an amused laugh.

Cora turned to me.

“Are you from a Muggle family?” she asked.

“Muggle?” Cora giggled.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. Muggles is what we call people who aren’t magical. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have grown up without magic.”

“My parents are Muggles,” I said, “but there are magical people in my family. And I did grow up with magic, but it was very different from this.”

My brain was swimming. There was so much to take in! But I was loving it at the same time. Already I felt like I would be more accepted in the magical world than I was in the Muggle world.

Once Cora and I had had all our clothes and robes fitted, we emerged back out onto the street, blinking in the light. Cora’s mother got into an animated conversation with McGonagall, who seemed to recognise her, and introduced herself and Cora to Mum and Dad.

“Mum was a Gryffindor,” Cora said to me while the adults chatted. “That’s one of the Hogwarts houses. Professor McGonagall’s the Head of Gryffindor house. That’s how they know each other.”

Cora’s mother tapped her arm.

“Come on,” she said, “we should let Alex’s family get on with their shopping, and we still have plenty to do ourselves.”

“Good bye, Alex!” called Cora as she followed her mother down the street, “I look forward to receiving your owl!”

 

 


End file.
